God With Us
Good morning Immanuel. The one who holds all things together by the word of his power dwells happily in our hearts through faith!
“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23).
As we love Jesus and live for Jesus, God lives lovingly within us. The Spirit of God within us is how the Father and the Son make their home in our hearts. And what could be more secure than a house that God inhabits?
Family, we are in no danger of feeling too secure in the Lord today. The one who owns all things, who holds all things together by the word of his power, dwells happily in our hearts through faith. Wherever we are, we are at home with God—both in this world and the world to come. What can’t we face with God on the inside?
When the great 4th-century preacher John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) was banished by the empress Eudoxia, He wrote this to a friend:
“When driven from the city, I cared nothing for it. But I said to myself, if the empress wishes to banish me, let her banish me—'the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.’ If she would saw me in sunder, let her saw me in sunder—I have Isaiah for a pattern. If she would plunge me in the sea—I remember Jonah. If she would thrust me into the fiery furnace—I see the three children enduring that. If she would cast me to wild beasts—I call to mind Daniel in the den of lions. If she would stone me, let her stone me—I have before me, Stephen the protomartyr. If she would take my head from me, let her take it—I have John the Baptist. If she would deprive me of my worldly goods, let her do it—naked came I from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.”
May the Lord so fill our hearts with His emboldening love today!
On the Horizon…
it's a great feeling to smash idols in my life and to return God to his rightful place as ruler in my life, and being gently reminded that the peace I was trying to find in other things can only be found in him